Recent news
Kpogo, Kohut & Chang in LSP volume
A paper entitled "Expressing diminutive meaning in heritage Twi: The role of complexity and language-specific preferences" (Kpogo, Kohut, & Chang, 2024) has been published by Language Science Press in the edited volume Formal Approaches to Complexity in Heritage Language Grammars.
Abstract: Twi (Akan) and English can both express diminutive meaning using a morphological strategy (diminutive suffix) or a syntactic strategy (adjectival construction), but they differ with respect to native-speaker preferences -- morphological in Twi, syntactic in English. Each strategy in Twi, moreover, is associated with different types of complexity (morphological, phonological, lexical, discourse-pragmatic, and/or inhibitory). In this study, we examined whether English-dominant, second-generation (G2) speakers of Twi in the US would express diminutive meaning in Twi differently from first-generation (G1) speakers. Results from elicited production suggest that G2 does indeed differ from G1 in this respect: whereas G1 relies on the morphological strategy, G2 relies on the syntactic strategy, producing adjectives post-nominally in accordance with Twi syntax. These results are discussed in light of variation in G2 speakers' morphological awareness and verbal fluency in Twi. Overall, our findings suggest that both the incremental complexity of linguistic options within a bilingual language repertoire and cross-linguistic influence at the level of preferences play a role in explaining G2's diminutive production.
This study followed Open Science practices, and all data and materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/wgqcm/.
Yao et al. at Speech Prosody
Prof. Chang is a coauthor on a paper with Prof. Yao Yao, PolyU PhD student Meixian (Vicky) Li, and Shiyue Li at this week's 12th International Conference on Speech Prosody (Speech Prosody 2024) in Leiden. Their paper, entitled "Perceiving the social meanings of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese", will be presented in the "Individual and social variation" oral thematic session on Thursday morning (July 4).
Yao et al. at LabPhon 19
This week, Prof. Chang, along with Prof. Yao Yao and PolyU PhD student Meixian (Vicky) Li, will be attending the 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon 19) in Seoul! They will be presenting a poster, entitled "Gender effects in the social perception of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese", in the afternoon poster session on Day 3 (Saturday).
Chang at Osmania U.
This week, Prof. Chang will be giving a talk at Osmania University's Department of Linguistics. The title of his talk is "Aspects of bilingual speech and bilingual development".
Chang at PolyU, CityU
Next week, Prof. Chang will be giving talks at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and at the City University of Hong Kong's Department of Linguistics and Translation. The titles of his talks are "Bilingual speech control under intoxication" and "Examining language knowledge through the multilingual repertoire".
Welcome to the Summer 2024 labbies!
Welcome to the four new students who will be joining the lab this summer:
- Serena Agarwal (Brown U. '27) is a second-year undergraduate student at Brown University. She is interested in the intersection of Linguistics, Computer Science, and Neuroscience, and she is particularly interested in language acquisition, computational linguistics, and psycholinguistics.
- Maryam Elbenni (Yale U. '26) is a rising third-year undergraduate at Yale University majoring in Cognitive Science, with a focus in linguistics. Her research interests include multilingual speech, L2 language acquisition, and natural language processing.
- Jaiden (Mengan) Li (Andover High School '25) is a high school junior. She is interested in second language acquisition, East Asian languages (including lesser-known dialects like Hmong and Fukienese), and natural language processing.
- Nick Tanner (UPenn '26) is a third-year student studying Linguistics and Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's interested in the linguistics of American Sign Language and multilingualism.
And a warm welcome back to Jupitara, Felix, and Sara!
Kpogo at ACAL, ASA
Felix Kpogo was busy this month giving presentations at the 55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 55) in Montreal and at the 186th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Ottawa (joint with Acoustics Week in Canada). His ACAL talk was entitled "Locality effects in [æ] vowel production in Twi", and his ASA poster was entitled "Harmony in transition: Exploring the perception-production relationship in sound change".
Kpogo defends
Congratulations to Felix Kpogo on the successful defense of his PhD dissertation, "Investigating sound change in Twi vowel harmony: A sociophonetic study of age, gender, and locality effects"!
Chang at MoS
Prof. Chang is one of the guest scientists speaking at this weekend's AAPI Month celebration at Boston's Museum of Science:
https://mos.org/events/asian-american-pacific-islander-heritage-month
Chang at MARCS, Macquarie
Last week, Prof. Chang gave talks at The MARCS Institute and at Macquarie University's Center for Language Sciences. The titles of his talks were "Understanding bilingual speech control: Insights from intoxication" and "Examining language knowledge through the multilingual repertoire".